TBAY: Token twinnery from a dingy dinghy

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 43232

Far far away from Theory Bay, where the waves roll from horizon to horizon unbroken by land, bobs a small and dingy dinghy.  At first glance, the stray seagulls floating overhead would see only a pair of abandoned oars, tangled around with sunbleached cloth and rope.  If they troubled to look more closely, however, they would see a faint but unmistakeably animate stirring in that tangle, punctuated by the gleam of a wakening eye...

Cindy:
> "Oh, please.  I don't do acronyms, remember?"  The Captain glanced 
side to side and leaned in closer to Meg.  "But I heard there is a 
fabulous acronym generator that they used to use over at LOLLIPOPS, 
just sitting there gathering dust.  If you polish it up a bit, it 
ought to serve you very well indeed.  I don't think you were around 
way back then, but the last owner got some *very* good results with 
it, all things considered."<

Slowly, the crumpled heap of cloth and rope unfolds, and a human hand emerges, holding a battered nautical map of the northern seas.  The owner of the hand tries to focus on this, but there is something hard and metallic poking into her stomach.  Irritated, she uses the other hand to lever her body away from it and studies it with bleary, sun-dazzled eyes.  It appears to be some sort of... machine.  Written on the top of it, half rusted away with seawater and mostly concealed by a small limpet, she can just make out the words "cronym Generat".  Memories ooze into her mind, strange memories involving something to do with... toads.  Or was it tofu?

How long has she been asleep?

Growing intrigued, the dinghy's owner struggles into a seated position, and digs through the peculiar objects on the bottom of the boat.  There are a number of rusty badges, a faded, crumpled pile of what appear to be costumes, and a bright pink mobile phone.  Frowning to herself in bewilderment, she picks up the phone.  There appear to be a number of text messages waiting on it, addressed to "Captain Tabouli, The Tangle of Rope and Cloth on the Floor, The Dingy Dinghy Floating Far Out To Sea".  After a few confused minutes, she finds the right button and begins to read...

***

Ahhhh, the Twins!  There's always room for some more analysis of the Twins, I say.  All that Joke Shop and blackmail business has me, at least, convinced that they will have a pivotal, and probably accidental/fortuitous, part to play in the forthcoming war.  Imagine... it's Book 7, the body count is high, the final showdown is upon us. Yes, it's finally down to Voldemort and Harry, wands out for the duel that will decide the fate of the the world, both Wizard and Muggle.  Avada Kedavra!  cries Voldemort, brandishing his new, Harryproof wand, with a core of Dumbledore's beard bristles.  Expelliarmus!  cries Harry, always a stickler for the tried and trusted.  Just as Harry's spell is about to hit, Voldemort's wand turns suddenly into a rubber fish and makes a squeaking noise...

bboy:
>The Ton Tongue Toffee and Dudley was certainly a risky and potentially
dangerous prank, but common sense says that if the intended to sell
these that, just like the Canary Cake, after a short period of time,
your tongue goes back to normal on it's own.<

Ahaaa, but remember those Toffees were at the *development* stage.  The twins, as shown in GoF, weren't completely sure of what effect they would have.  They asked their father how big Dudley's tongue got, remember?  If they didn't know the exact effects of the charm they put on the toffees, they wouldn't necessarily know for sure that the effects would only be temporary. Dudley was their guinea pig.  Their lab rat!  If Arthur hadn't been around to shrink it, who knows what might have happened...

Seriously, though, I've never been keen on JKR's use of Dudley as a punching bag.  Yes, yes, Dudley uses Harry as a punching bag, but I'm talking more about authorial portrayal here.  Dwelling on how grotesquely obese he is with malevolent glee.  Having Hagrid put a pig's tail on him to punish Vernon for badmouthing Dumbledore.  The Toffee business.  And, which is most troubling, recounting these incidents in a way which strongly implies that she expects the readers to cheer gleefully at his downfall and see everything that befalls him as entirely deserved and hilarious.

To borrow Dicentra's term, JKR's portrayal of the Dursleys has always struck me as... Toonish.  Children's cartoon villains, a foil for Wonderboy and the Wizarding World.  And, like most children's cartoon villains, they're ugly, simplistically drawn, and are regularly foiled at predictable moments using slapstick comeuppances at which the viewer is meant to laugh.

Ah well.  JKR said in an interview or two that she pities Dudley and views his parents' treatment of him as abusive, describing him as still redeemable, so maybe she's planning to flesh him out a little more (so to speak!) in later books.

Pippin:
> The twins aren't bullies. What they are is *rebels.* They don't 
attack those whom they perceive as weak. They attack the 
strong, using guerilla tactics which will doubtless come in handy 
in the war ahead.<

Hmmm.  Without delving too deeply into the whole bullying issue, I think the twins, at least, see their role as maintaining and upholding "team morale", using weapons which are gradually shifting from humour towards more drastic means (blackmail, violence) as they get older.  The group represented by the "team" shifts depending on circumstances from the Weasley family to Gryffindor to the Good Side in the war, but if you look at their actions, it holds fairly well.

They hassle Percy when they think he is not being a good team player, paying more attention to his own selfish ambitions (e.g. as prefect and later assistant to Mr Crouch).  They pay particular attention to Harry's morale, as he is obviously the star "player", protecting him from Wood's dangerous Quidditch zeal, avenging him against Dudley, giving him the Map so he can go to Hogsmeade (which upsets Ron, but that doesn't matter, as Ron is a less significant "player"), standing up to Draco for him, and so on.  They rather insensitively try to "cheer Ginny up" (and, most likely, entertain the rest of the "team") when they think she's dragging the side down by moping about a minor defeat (the petrification of Dennis Creevey), and dismiss upsetting personal events as irrelevant to team fortunes and therefore to be gotten over as quickly as possible so they don't affect performance (the death of pets).  They hiss people on the enemy team (like Malcolm Baddock), bristle at someone who brought down morale by defeating Gryffindor (Cedric), and cheer on their father when he starts a fight with Lucius.  They poke fun at someone who is a weak player (Neville) to keep the team entertained and perhaps also encourage him to become more alert and improve his performance.

As for the bullying, their first loyalty is to the team and its star players, not to people's feelings, or physical wellbeing.  Coaches have to be ruthless about dropping weak players from the side, or, if this isn't an option, bullying them into lifting their game.  Grief over something unrelated to the game, like a dead pet, or the loss of a fellow player, can't be allowed to affect performance.  They just need to toughen up.  Coaches also have to take special care of their star players, and may find it difficult to conceal their resentment when a weaker side defeats their team because of circumstances outside their control (like Draco playing Dementor). They may come across as insensitive, playing favorites and bullying to individuals because of these things, but this is just too bad, in their view.  The most important thing is winning, not compassion to individual team members.

***

After reading the final message, the bedraggled occupant of the dinghy puts down the lurid pink phone and looks thoughtfully at the machine again.  There is a slot on the side of it which looks mysteriously similar in size to the phone.  On impulse, she slips the phone into the slot, presses a couple of levers on the machine at random, and then jumps back in shock when a grinding, chugging noise begins inside it.  Very very slowly, a piece of paper exudes from the other side of the machine.  On it are two slogans:

PRATTLESNAKES (People Rejecting All The Twins' Lovingly Executed Schoolboy Needling As Kindling Emotional Suffering), and BUTTERFLIES (Brigade Upholding The Twins' Entertaining Role, Fuelling Laughs In Every Scene).

Just as she is trying to figure out what this means, another port opens on the machine and spits out a clatter of little badges, which on closer inspection bear either the first slogan and a picture of a pair of small snakes or the second slogan and a pair of red and gold butterflies.  Shaking her head, she carefully scoops these up, seals them in a glass bottle, and tosses the bottle overboard into the endless circle of sky and sea...

Tabouli.


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